According to CNSNews.com, exgays across the spectrum are “enraged” at John Kerry’s debate remark that people could be born gay. Kerry said:

“I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as,” Kerry said. “I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not choice. I’ve met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.”

Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas of Exodus; Jeralee Smith of the NEA Ex-Gay Caucus; Prof. Warren Throckmorton, exgay science pundit at Grove City College; and Chad Thompson of Inqueery all weigh in against Kerry, even though George W. Bush waffled in his own answer. Throckmorton and Thompson use the opportunity to promote their new video, “I Do Exist.” Alan Chambers said he intends for Bush to accept Chambers’ politically partisan exgay ideology, and he wrote an open appeal to the President on behalf of Exodus. Chambers confuses the issue, though by talking about actions rather than attraction or orientation:

“We all have a choice to do what is best, and with regard to acting on my homosexual feelings and inclinations, I did not choose God’s best for me or for society when I chose to act upon them,” Chambers wrote. “However, I did finally choose to live beyond those feelings and today I am not a homosexual nor am I tempted to be one.”

As to growing scientific evidence of some biological roots to homosexuality, and despite Throckmorton’s own acknowledgement of biological ties, Thomas flatly rejects the science:

“There is absolutely zero scientific evidence that would suggest people are born gay,” Thomas said. “It’s a simplistic answer that will pander to people that he is winking at when he says he is not for gay marriage. But in reality, he promotes rhetoric that is straight out of a gay activist brochure.”

Smith, of the NEA Ex-gay Caucus, leaps to the conclusion:

“Senator Kerry, in his answer, basically invalidated me as a person. … I have experienced significant change in my sexual orientation and my feelings.”

“Change” — in other words, Smith’s choice to repress feelings and assume a mindset of asexuality or imposed heterosexuality — is beside the point. The question was whether people are born with a predisposition toward one sexual orientation or another. Despite Smith’s claim that she appreciated moderator Bob Schieffer’s question, she does appear to feel threatened by it.

Exodus official Randy Thomas invites comments at his discussion board.

Categorized in: